At least 15 people have died from an earthquake that struck northern Italy today. The 5.8-magnitude quake struck only nine days after a 6.0 quake that killed seven people in the region.

While Tuesday’s quake was about 100 times less intense than the 6.0 temblor on May 20, its death toll was more than twice the earlier quake’s toll of seven. In both, the dead included workers killed by collapsing factories and warehouses.

Civil Protection agency officials said at least 15 people were killed, about 100 were injured and there was no precise number of the missing. Emergency crews were trying to sift through the twisted steel and broken stone, looking for victims. (Read the AP article.)

At least one person died from when a factory building collapsed during the quake. The building had re-opened that same day following the other quake.

Another victim was a priest who was visiting a church to see if they would be able to salvage statues from the building. The church partially collapsed on him.

Thousands are still homeless in the area.

Italian civil protection authorities confirmed at least 10 people had died and predicted the number would rise as rescue workers search for survivors in the rubble.

Tuesday’s quake was followed by dozens of aftershocks. Italy’s Institute of Geology said the aftershocks measured 5.3 and 5.1 magnitude. The U.S. Geological Survey recorded one aftershock of 5.6 magnitude just before 1 p.m. local time. (Read the CNN article.)

The May 20th quake was described by Italian officials as the worst event to hit the region since the 1300s. It knocked down much of the industry with the warehouses and buildings but also destroyed centuries of historic artifacts and priceless works of art.

By The Ready Store

A tornado was an unexpected guest at a wedding this weekend in Harper County, Kansas.

The happy couple, Caleb and Candra Pence were married May 19 in an outdoor wedding.

“The tornadoes were actually coming down throughout the ceremony,” wedding photographer Cate Eighmey told the Wichita Eagle. “Nobody was panicking. It was the most surreal thing.”

The guests and wedding party were well aware that a tornado was a possibility in the area. In fact, the family was watching the weather carefully for signs of a twister.

Knowing that rain would be coming soon, Eighmey snapped the photos quickly.

“I saw the tornado forming even before the wedding started,” Caleb told ABC News. “I told my dad but he said not to worry about it. I was getting married, I really didn’t care about the tornado. I told Candra and she said she didn’t want to hear about it right now.”

Caleb also told local radio KAKE, that he knew their wedding party would be safe. As a Kansas native, he had seen many tornadoes form in the area and knew this one was moving away from the ceremony.

However, this was the first tornado that Candra had ever seen.

“It was very classic: boots, jeans, wheat and tornado,” Caleb’s mother Carla Pence said. “You can’t get any better than that for Kansas.”

By The Ready Store

You can still see signs of the devastating tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri. Many parts of the city still have demolished buildings, smashed out windows and a lack of shrubbery.

“A third of the city got pretty much destroyed by the tornado,” said Mayor Melodie Colbert-Kean. “A war zone, that’s what it looked like to me.”

A year ago, Joplin was hit by an EF5 tornado with 200 – 250 mph winds. The storm lifted homes and hospitals off their foundations, wiped out business and ultimately, took more than 160 lives. A year later, the community is still rebuilding homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and their lives.

Not losing the faith
After the storm, crews began cleaning up 3 million cubic yards of debris. Once removed, it left an eerie wasteland without homes or trees. However, one of the things that did stay standing was a cross from the local Catholic Church.

“I just looked and I thought, God is really with us, and he’s letting us know he’s going to take care of us,” Father Justin Monaghan told CNN. “It was tremendous. It was a real gift to see that and it became a symbol all over the community, in fact all over the world.”

The congregation is working towards building a new church building while the cross will become part of a memorial park.

A different kind of education
After the tornado hit, the community was shocked to find that their local high school was now just a pile of rubble.

While they continue to rebuild a new high school, the students have been holding classes in a mall. It was a bit of an adjustment having school in a mall with businesses and senior citizen mall walkers.

However, the events have made the students uncommonly mature. While typical students are worried about their social status or trying out for a sports team, Joplin High School students are focusing on rebuilding their community.

“We get support from each other and our teachers,” Rachel Berryhill, an 18-year-old senior told CNN. “I know it’s changed me a lot as a person, whether I like it or not. I don’t care as much about material possession … It’s made me value friendships.”

President Obama honored the students by providing the commencement speech for the graduation ceremonies.

“We can define our own lives not by what happens to us, but by how we respond,” said the president. “America only succeeds when we all pitch in and pull together — and I’m counting on you to be leaders in that effort.”

Rebuilding a home
The Joplin tornado left thousands of people homeless. Nearly 7,000 homes were destroyed and over 850 others damaged. Many people in the area are still living in FEMA trailers as they try and rebuild their homes.

Many are still looking for help as FEMA is seeking volunteers to help build homes in the area. Others are trying to cut through insurance red tape or put together enough money to buy materials after the tornado wiped out a large majority of the businesses in the area.

Healing
This last year has been a struggle for Joplin residents. Thousands are still trying to rebuild their lives, community, homes and businesses.

However, as Joplin mayor Melodie Colbert-Kean said, “Joplin is on the mend. We have a long road to travel but the way that everyone is joining together and unifying and chipping in, we’re going to make it.”

If you would like to donate to those affected by the Joplin tornado, please visit the American Red Cross site or The Salvation Army.

By The Ready Store

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit northern Italy on Sunday and has claimed at least seven lives and caused widespread damage. Reportedly, thousands of people have been left homeless.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 3,500 people have been evacuated from their homes and are spending the night in tent cities, cars, public buildings and other locations.

“The fear that your house will collapse on your head is great, so it was good to be able to sleep in this tent,” one man from San Felice sul Panaro told MSNBC.

Crews scrambled to erect emergency tents when cold, heavy rain started to fall on the area. This, along with the approximately 170 aftershocks, has added to the tension.

Among the most badly hit sites were a number of cultural heritage structures, according to reports. Italy’s cultural ministry said that “after an initial survey, damage to cultural patrimony appears significant.”

One of the hardest hit areas was San Felice sul Panaro, a town near Bologna, which saw serious damage to a 14th century castle and to churches that housed valuable paintings and frescoes. The mayor of the town told reporters that “we have practically lost all our artistic patrimony.” (Read the LA Times article.)

Crews will be surveying the areas this week to determine if many farmhouses, barns and agricultural storage facilities were damaged by the quake.

By The Ready Store

A wildfire in Fort Collins, Colo., has grown from 1,000 acres to over 7,000 acres in a few days, causing officials to order a mandatory evacuation for 80 homes in Larimer County this weekend.

As of Thursday afternoon, the fire was about 5% contained and was being fought by 391 personnel, officials said.

Additional firefighters have been ordered, as have two heavy air tankers, one heavy helicopter and one light helicopter.

The fire is being fueled on land described as open timber with brush and grass in steep, rugged terrain. The growth potential of the blaze is described as high. (Read the LA Times article.)

The Hewlett Fire, as it’s being called, is pushing through an area of Colorado that has very rocky terrain and has been deprived of water for a while. Erratic wind conditions have also presented some problems, pushing the fire across the state and towards Utah.

With dozens of homes being evacuated, many are fleeing, trying to collect their things before they are destroyed by the fires.

Mary Caraway filled her car with clothing, paintings and other family mementos and drove away from her home on Obenchain Road, hoping she and her neighbors will all be safe and will return to find their homes intact.

“We’re going to keep praying, trusting God,” said Caraway “We’re praying for the firemen.” (Read the Reporter Herald article.)

Fires have also popped up in California, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

The fires have created some air quality issues. Many schools have closed their doors, keeping children inside during recess to prevent asthma-induced attacks.

By The Ready Store

In May of 2011, a tornado warning was issued in Joplin, Mo.. Sirens sounded and residents were told to move to a secure shelter. However, most residents did not heed the warning. In the end, 158 people lost their lives that day.

Why didn’t people heed the warnings?

Notice the sirens going off in the background:

I started looking for more information into why people don’t follow tornado warnings and found that scientists are just as stumped as I am.

Wait, Is This For Real?
According to research by Laura Myers, a Mississippi State University sociologist, about 10 percent of the population takes warning at the first sign of bad weather. However, the majority respond to tornado warnings and sirens with “denial.”

“They’re sitting there saying, ‘OK, I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to have to worry about it.,” Myers told MPR News. “I want to assume everything is going to be OK.’ That’s why the person will wait for that secondary confirmation. They’ll say, ‘I’ve really gotta know it’s going to hit me.’”

Researchers have found that the majority of people will keep an eye on the news but they look to the sky more often. The average tornado warning in the United States occurs about 13 minutes before an incident, according to the National Weather Service. However, most people spend time looking for more news to confirm the warning.

“People turn into information vampires when they hear their town and village might be struck by a violent tornado,” said Dennis Mileti, retired director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “That’s how human beings are wired. Nothing is going to change that.”

In order to combat this problem, the NWS is planning on using more intense tornado warning language. For example, warnings will state that “mass devastation is highly likely, making the are unrecognizable to survivors” or “complete destruction in your neighborhood is likely.”

However, they are finding that many people are still not heeding the warnings because of a perception that most of the warnings are false alarms.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Reportedly, 75 percent of tornado warnings are false alarms – there is no observed tornado. However, that doesn’t mean that a tornado wasn’t forming – it just didn’t touch the ground.

Warning graphics on televisions typically show whole counties that may be affected instead of the actual path of the storm. This leads to whole counties being warned while a city on the edge of the county might be the only area affected.

Issues like this have lead the NWS to issue “storm-based” warnings.

“That means that they do not issue warnings based on political boundaries (like cities or counties),” wrote Mike Eilts, CEO of Weather Decision Technologies. “Rather, the warnings are issued as polygons which precisely outline the area that the expert meteorological believes is in the hazardous path. Yet, many communities continue to set off their sirens for the entire city or county.” And that seems to be the problem.

Eilts recommends that people use modern technology, like phone apps, to get more precise information about their neighborhood. His company offers an app, iMapWeather Radio, that issues alerts via your phone if you are in a polygon affected area instead of just the county.

“We have over 250,000 users of this app, and we have many testimonials about how we have saved people’s lives during tornados,” he wrote. “However, our biggest complaint is: ‘I did not get an alert for the tornado/severe thunderstorm warning in my area even though the sirens were going off and the television meteorologist was showing I was in the warning.’ We actually had to build a tool so that we could investigate each of these complaints … and guess what? EVERY single complaint we have received we have shown that the location of the person was actually NOT in the warning polygon even though they were getting alerts from multiple credible sources!”

What Do You Do?
So we’re curious. What do you do to be forewarned about tornadoes? Is there certain websites or apps that you would recommend? Share your knowledge below and comment!

By The Ready Store

Over 700 million euros ($898 million USD) have been withdrawn from Greek banks in a week’s time. The country’s insecure financial situation has brought many people to start withdrawing their money from the country’s banking systems.

This announcement came from Greek president Karolos Papoulias, who had just been briefed on the subject by the Central Bank president, George Provopoulos.

With this news today, stocks closed at a 3-month low today. The Dow Jones lost 63 points, closing at it’s lowest levels since Jan. 19. (Read the CNN Money article.)

Greek citizens are beginning to pour their money into out-of-country banks for security. During the past two years, offshore transfers have generally averaged between €2 billion and €3 billion per month – however, in January they topped the €5 billion mark, according to the Digital Journal.

Provopoulos tried to quelch fears by stating that it is not a sign of panic but that it was people preparing against a real panic.

“The situation in the banks is very difficult,” Papoulias said, according to a transcript of the meeting’s minutes. “Mr. Provopoulos told me that of course there is no panic, but there is great fear which could turn into panic.”

The economic mishandlings have sparked citizens to demand changes in the government. Greece held elections on May 6, punishing the country’s most prominent political parties by withholding their votes and instead, splitting the votes among smaller side-interest political parties.

However, those elections have failed to form a new coalition government, sparking debate about how to move forward.

Leaders from the five main political parties met together today to talk about forming a technocratic government – a system that would run the country without politicians. This, in an effort to avoid having to redo elections in the country. They also discussed other political options.

However, those efforts proved fruitless too. Evangelos Venizelos, a member of the country’s Socialist Party, said they failed due to “arrogance, petty party politics and opportunism.” This will force Greece to go back to the drawing board and hold another round of elections.

If no decision is reached in time, Greece will stop receiving financial help from other European countries and default.

Jonathan Loynes, a chief European economist at Capital Economics, told Reuters that there is “now a considerable danger that Greece simply runs out of money. It can’t pay wages, can’t run public transport, can’t maintain infrastructure and that the country just descends into complete chaos.” Greece’s partners – especially France and Germany – would be exposed to the loss of billions of euros.

However, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has dismissed ideas that Europe’s economy will collapse.

“Europe won’t sink that easily,” he said. “We want Greece to remain in the eurozone but it also has to want this and to fulfil its obligations. Irish central bank governor Patrick Honohan agreed, saying that Greece’s departure from the eurozone “isn’t necessarily fatal.”

By The Ready Store

According to a recent survey, more than half of small businesses in the United States have not taken any measures to prepare against natural disasters.

The survey, conducted by FedEx Corp and the American Red Cross, found that 51 percent of small businesses have never practiced evacuations or other emergency drills. Forty-seven percent have not assigned or communicated employee’s roles for the business in a disaster.

Further, while 40 percent of small businesses do not believe they could fully recover within six months if their business was completely destroyed in a disaster, fewer than one third (29 percent) of those surveyed are prepared if a disaster disrupts their business for just one month.

Additionally, the majority of small businesses may not fully realize how a disaster could impact one of their greatest resources–their employees. Seventy-seven percent have not taken steps to encourage employees to create disaster preparedness plans for their homes and families. (Read the BusinessWire release.)

Having natural disasters affect small businesses in the U.S. could have a huge impact on our economy.

After Hurricane Katrina, the largest natural disaster in U.S. history, more than $2.3 billion of small business loans were made to about 22,000 companies in the area.

“Many small businesses put off disaster preparation because of concerns about lack of resources or expertise,” said Rose Flenorl, manager, Global Citizenship, FedEx Services. “But some simple, inexpensive steps can go a long way toward helping businesses be prepared if disaster strikes. The survey found that 77 percent of small businesses would be more likely to take action to prepare for disaster if they were provided with educational materials.”

Previously, we wrote about ways that your business could prepare for an earthquake or other natural disaster. Please take time to prepare your business, along with your family.

China continues to experience major flooding that affects thousands of people, has taken lives, and wiped out precious crops.

The Chinese goverment has warned that more storms may be on their way. They say that rainstorms are expected for the next three days, with up to 150 millmeters of rain.

This announcement came after three people were killed, with another missing, after a flash flood engulfed a shed at a construction site in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region early yesterday. Rescuers retrieved the bodies by noon, but last night were still looking for one missing person in Wanggao township in the city of Hezhou, firefighters said. (Read the East Day article.)

About 172,000 residents in Hunan, China, were relocated over the weekend. Continuous rains and flooding have affected over 2.91 million people in 50 provinces in the country.

Over 3,600 houses in Hunan have collapsed in the storms, which have also led to direct economic losses of about 2.87 billion yuan (about $456.3 million).

The heavy rains have also lifted water levels on the province’s major rivers to dangerous levels, the provincial meteorological bureau said, adding that the Miluo, Zishui and Yuanshui rivers have all been affected.

The provincial government has ordered local authorities to make preparations for disaster relief work and make efforts to prevent the rivers from flooding.

Precipitation in Hunan is expected to drop on Tuesday, although another round of rain is expected for Friday, according to the provincial meteorological bureau. (Read the China Daily article.)

Southern China’s Guangi Zhuang region has also experienced heavy flooding and rains. The storms have left at least four people dead and more missing. The storms there have affected more than 70,000 people and damaged thousands of acres of crops.

By The Ready Store

Many Japanese citizens are lucky to be alive after a tsunami last year that destroyed the Fukushima power plant.

However, there is one man who has escaped death twice! The man survived the tsunami and a very rare tornado that struck last week in Japan.

A tornado with winds of 113-157 mph (F2 intensity) ripped through the city of Tsukuba in Japan Sunday, 60 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Tokyo. The twister left a trail of destruction, killed a 14-year old boy and injured dozens. (Read the Washington Post article.)

Tornadoes are very rare in Japan and occur maybe only once a decade.

It almost seems as if mother nature is out to get Seiichi Ohkawa. He survived the Fukushima quake and was in the path of the rare tornado this week.

Ohkawa was working inside the nuclear plant when the 9.0 quake hit.

Then he and his wife became evacuees. Their house, just miles from the plant, became and remains a radioactive wasteland. (Read the KSDK.com article.)

After the power plant disaster, they picked up the pieces of their life and moved away. He and his wife moved 3 ½ hours away to Tsukuba, Japan.

“I don’t know whether we’re unlucky because we got hit twice by disaster or we’re lucky that we survived both,” he told CNN.

An apartment building, one of the taller buildings, took the brunt of the destruction, and it’s where 20 evacuees from the area around the Fukushima nuke plant were calling home.

“I can’t believe this happened to them,” said Miyuki Takada. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”

Ohkawa and his wife narrowly survived by diving behind the bedroom screen just as the twister passed through their apartment.

Is he supposed to be grateful? Still in shock, Ohkawa says he doesn’t know.

“It’s a natural disaster. I don’t know who to be angry at,” he said. (Read the KSDK.com article.)